This is...

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Here are the directions...1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I have together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember...

2. Next, repost these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty cool(and funny) to see the responses. If you leave a memory I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave a memory for you.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

So, Charity got to do 2 soccer camps, and Aaron got to do 1 baseball camp. Charity's camps were around here - convenient and not very pricy... Aaron's was all the way down in Fort Worth and kindof pricy (at TCU). I will say you prob get what you pay for.

Charity is young, and absolutely LOVED her camps. They were great. She went for half the day and played soccer. The camps were close by and run by one or two people, she spent the day on the field and that was it... She got pretty good at controlling the ball and I must say she is ADORABLE when she plays soccer! I think she will be good if she wants to be!

Aaron's camp was crazy. It was run by the TCU baseball team (coaches and assistants and seniors). They also brought in a couple high ranking highschool baseball coaches. I really didnt know what I was in for - I just thought it would be like the camps Charity went to - kids play ball for a couple hours and call it good. The first day, I took aaron with a lunch, his mit and a ball cap... upon arriving, i noticed all the other kids had big ol' bags full of their own helmet and super duty bat and hitting gloves and everyone was super serious... ya, those were the types of people at the camp. all the baseball prodigys of the fort worth area! all the kids were toting their allstar bags and stuff... ANYWAYS it was neat cause they got to use the full college facility - all their cool batting tools and cages and more... they did FILMS too!!! They played a game every day the last hour of camp. So, that first day, the 2 little ones and I make the trek back and come to find out, parents had taken the week off work so they could watch their kids ALL DAY at this camp. There were little 6 yr olds catching pop flys and making throws from 3rd to first for a double play... hitting home runs OVER the fence... aaron got pretty down on himself cause he is not a baseball prodigy... am i a terrible mother? regardless, Aaron got a lot better at baseball this week, and i had a lot of fun watching him. although he felt like he sucked, i really think he did well. he made it home lots of times, and can bat both left and right... he has plenty of time to develop into the sports prodigy i know he will become!!! ;)

Aaron is the kid curled in a ball on the ground... he is making the dash for home here! ok, just imagine the joys of watching your kid play baseball every day from 2-3pm in 100 degree weather... ya, it was this much fun.

I took the kids to the zoo one of the days while aaron was in camp- ya, TCU is a 45 min drive from my house - the zoo is down the street from the college... we have passes... great way to pass the time instead of driving back and forth and back and forth...

nate, my animal lover, was unsure about the birds... this is seriously my favorite part of the zoo - feeding the birds - the kids LOVE it! (so worth the dollar!!) the kids looking at the tiger...

Obviously, I spent a lot of time in the car last week (i dont think joe realized when he signed aaron up that it would take my gas hog 2 full tanks of gas and 3 hrs of driving every day and LOTS and LOTS of time)... but Aaron had fun. we are looking forward to a relaxing week at the pool... (with a little packing and house hunting and ...)

ps, Aaron had a basketball game this morning, and I just wanted to write down how proud i am of him. He played so well. Yes, he made lots of baskets and blocked a bunch of shots and stole the ball and had a couple fast breaks etc... BUT we are mostly proud of him staying focused and working hard for 3 straight quarters... he really played better than i have ever seen him play this morning. WAY TO GO AARON!

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Where has the time gone? It is now 16 days into July, and I haven't posted since MAY??? What has kept me away? BEWARE, this post is REALLY long!

June was busy...

One weekend, Joe and I took Aaron to the indy car races at Texas Motor Speedway. That was pretty cool. Jeff and Michelle (and their kids) Owen (and a chick) my dad, Cher, Scott and Luke came too. It was pretty neat. We were right in the front. It was so loud and amazing... One of those wow nights for me. Seriously, everyone needs to go to a race at least once in their lifetime. Yes, we are Texas WT... but who cares!

I finished the website: http://www.delphitrade.com/ ALSO, i did delphianalytics.com but that one looks VERY similar to delphitrade. ;)they aren't super awesome yet (i havent added logins and the super secret stuff yet) EVERYTHING from "hey, build me a website" (like the graphics and all the programming and setting up the hosting) was done by yours truly ;) I am just going to say, it doesnt look like much, but my dad (the person who commissioned this) is not the type to sit down and give lots of instruction. He said "build me a website" so i went to work, although I have no clue what he does, or what his business does, or the purpose of the webiste, or anything... PS - i also haven't made a website since college 8 yrs ago. I had to learn/relearn SO many things! To complicate things, i had a client who said (essentially) build me a house - and didnt give me very much input as to where, what size, what style, how many rooms... (you get the point)... anyways, at least now, we are at a point where it is close to something?

Anyways, here's a big exciting piece of news: Joe was ready for a change... so, he took a job at Dr. Pepper (finance dept). We think it is pretty cool cause now he works for a company we are ADDICTED to! ;) The only problem is that it is super far away - in the plano/frisco area... SOOOOO... we decided to put our house on the market.

Putting your house on the market is kindof stressful... This market out here is not so great. So, I had a stager out here (provided by my AWESOME realtors) on June 16th. That gave me a week before the wedding to clean out and make my house look great. So, that week of the 15th - the 22nd, I didnt sleep. I painted my bedroom and bathroom. I cleaned out and staged (w/my mom's help) all my closets. I reorganized. I CLEANED. I got myself a storage unit and moved all the junk and extra furniture into it. Ok, here's something funny - i had a futon. however, due to time constraints, the only help available to move it to the storage unit was 7yr old aaron. So we got it in my yukon and i also had to pile all my kids in there too as i unloaded it there. Seriously, that is how my whole week looked. I was trying to balance finishing the website, staging my house, and finishing my sister's wedding video (oh ya, being a mom w/kids in gymnastics, and baseball and basketball...). SERIOUSLY, delphi and steph really need to appreciate my efforts. ;)

We signed off and officially put our house on the market Sunday the 22nd.

After a week of no sleep, I couldn't think of a better way to relax then by renting a tiny PRIUS, squishing me the 3 kids, and driving to MESA! My mom was with me on the way there. She was helpful. UNFORTUNATELY, due to some miscommunication between me and the fuel gauge, we ran out of gas about 60 miles before el paso - in the middle of the day in the middle of NOWHERE! What a fun experience! ;) We called AAA, but they would take forever... my mom sent me to talk to the first cop who stopped - he said, "ya, your best bet is to wait for AAA" then drove off. I obviously have absolutely NO CHARMING ABILITIES!!! so, i sent my mom to talk to the second cop who stopped to ask us what the prob was. She was obviously more charming cause he told my mom to wait there for AAA but he would take me and the 3 kids up to the next town for some gas. Did i mention that it was HOT? i was SO glad to get out of the sun! anyways, he moved a bunch of confiscated rifles to his trunk and we piled in and got gas, and got going again. I guess a road trip is just not real until there is a fun incident like that!

yes, this is a pic of my mom and my 3 kids standing on the side of the road in 100 degree heat in the middle of nowhere...

Ok, so we made it to AZ. I stayed at Dawn's house and the kids were in heaven playing w/their cousins. It was a crazy wedding week, so that didnt really leave me much time (and i really didnt have much energy) to see many people. The wedding was fabulous. it of course made me jealous. nobody roasted steph, the reception was SOOO beautiful, they had a wonderful photographer, i would say things went pretty well. we stayed in a hotel while joe was in town (he conveniently got to fly 1st class both ways - he had to fly out after his last day w/deloitte, and fly back before his first day w/DP - meanwhile i got the privlage of driving a tiny yet fuel efficient car 17 hrs with kids both ways...) anyways, congrats to steph and nate. i had fun in mesa. it was a good trip.

So, I came home from my trip July 1st, (owen drove back w/me) and my realtor called telling me maybe we priced it too high, but we should wait till after the weekend of the 4th to re-evaluate... Joe and I weren't too worried. We weren't in a hurry to sell - so who cares if it takes a long time...

We wanted to stay out of the house and keep it clean... so we headed down to houston for the 4th of July weekend. We stayed at Jeff's house. The kids swam all day, the brothers rode jeff's motorcycles and played basketball... I vegged out. ;) I love those kinds of vacations. Jeff has enough motorcycles for all the brothers... all of the wifes would just ride on the back... still fun. ANYWAYS, We went on a motorcycle ride on the evening of the 4th. Joe and I rode one of jeff's crotch rockets to reminisce about the old days when he had his honda CBR (ya, charity is named after his motorcycle)... Anyways, the next morning, I woke up SOOO sick - i was puking and dizy and wanted to die - i think i even cried and thought i would. by the evening i was recovering. then sunday i felt better, so we went on a ride to some national park before we got in the car and drove back up to dallas. monday, i woke up wanting to die again. Apparantly, I can't ride motorcycles anymore. I got crazy veritgo!!! went to the dr and got a shot of something and felt a little better. Seriously, i must be getting old - i cant seem to do anything fun anymore!!! :(

ANYWAYS, that next day, we had 2 offers on our house!!! We of course accepted the best one, and will be hopefully closing here on aug 7th!!! (30 days from the offer)

ok, so if you are still with me, you will look and see that i have not said we found a place to move yet. We haven't. I have gone out house shopping and been online ever since trying to find a house - ya we didnt expect to sell it as quick as we did. Now, we have decided to just move into an apt until we find the perfect place to live - cause we dont even know WHERE!!! we are thinking CARROLLTON, FRISCO, or THE COLONY. anyone want to weigh in on that?

So, now, I am frantically looking for a house, trying to prepare for a move... etc...